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This wasn't what I expected, but overall it wasn't a bad read actually. It was more of a personal story about Beast's friendship with Congressman Gary and Gary's feelings for his country than anything else. This personal relationship between the two men was pretty well done I thought.

I had heard before reading this issue about the Smithsonian exhibits and the statue of Lincoln coming to life as well as Washington's ghost leading and phantom army against the forces attacking Washington. That stuff made me nervous as a non-American who finds that patriotic stuff in the US media all too often falls into unenjoyable jingoism. The overall tone wasn't all that bad though. I think Congressman Leonard Gary's dialogue about how he views the US and the fact that he was a powerful mutant who was controlling the strange defenders of Washington is what saved this issue.

I'll give it a 7 out of 10.

Last edited by Stephen Day on Sun May 29, 2011 12:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

BlueStreak wrote:I was not a big fan of Secret Avengers #13, but I will say that Beast's characterization is consistent with Fraction's character assassination in Uncanny.

After Fear Itself is done, they need to get Beast, Reed Richards and Hank Pym together to form the Big Smart Idiots Team where they make poor decisions and then suffer the consequences.

In Beast's defense, it wasn't exactly his idea to leave the battlefield. He was ordered to by the military. I took his words "Yes, this seems like a perfectly logical time for a briefing." to be pretty sarcastic in nature.

This wasn't what I expected, but overall it wasn't a bad read actually. It was more of a personal story about Beast's friendship with Congressman Gary and Gary's feelings for his country than anything else. This personal relationship between the two men was pretty well done I thought.

I had heard before reading this issue about the Smithsonian exhibits and the statue of Lincoln coming to life as well as Washington's ghost leading and phantom army against the forces attacking Washington. That stuff made me nervous as a non-American who finds that patriotic stuff in the US media all too often falls into unenjoyable jingoism. While this was somewhat the case, the overall tone wasn't all that bad. I think Congressman Leonard Gary's dialogue about how he views the US and the fact that he was a powerful mutant who was controlling the strange defenders of Washington is what saved this issue from going too far down a road I personally didn't want to see it go down.

I'll give it a 7 out of 10.

Stephen, the word "jingoism" means extreme patriotism in the form of aggressive foreign policy. Fear Itself, specifically this issue, shows an attack on Washington D.C. that is being defended against. Jingoism has no place in a discussion of the defense of one's homeland, and you've shown you don't even know what the word means to boot!

In a pleasant break from the monotony of superhero comics, Secret Avengers #13 is a political commentary on the destruction of America by liberals. First and most obviously, a robotic army invades Washington DC, adorned with swastikas, symbol of the Fascist liberal agenda. As these elitist liberals attempt to destroy the capital, three conservative heroes, War Machine, Ant Man, and The Beast head into the fray in an attempt to save the city through their values of fiscal responsibility and small government. Of course, the bloated liberal bureaucracy soon intervenes, pulling the Beast off of the culture war battlefield. It seems that the army has spent billions of taxpayer dollars on weapons of mass destruction, but needs it's own expensive mutant hero in order to stop one congressman who has locked himself in the House chambers.

Of course, the congressman himself is another metaphor for the arrogance and belittlement tactics of the liberal media. Since he is a member of the now Republican controlled House of Representatives, he is derided as "probably armed" and "off his nut." For daring to think against the grain and not doing as he's told by the liberal elite when ordered to evacuate, the congressman is considered a mad dog who must be put down. The Beast heads off to investigate for himself, thankfully, refusing to allow liberal group-think to cloud his individualistic judgment. After all, Beast knows the man: Leonard Gary (R).

After breaking down the solid oak doors of the liberal plutocracy, Beast finds his friend, alone in the house chambers, symbolic of the plight of the free-thinking conservative who stands alone against a throng of hive-mind liberals in modern life. It turns out that Beast and Gary have known each other since the days of the Mutant Registration Act, where the two stood together in an attempt to stop the brutal autocrat Robert Kelly (D) from passing a law requiring all mutants and political dissenters to register at fishyrumors.whitehouse.gov.

Of course, even a conservative hero like Gary is not without Blemish, as St. Nick Spencer takes the time to show us that even the most honorable politicians are subject to the corruption of American politics, as Gary is on the floor after all of the other congressmen have left, trying to ramrod through a pork bill to subsidize the health benefits of coal miners at the expense of hard-working taxpayers. Of course, this is also a commentary on the dubious subversion of the political process that resulted in the tyrannical passage of Obamacare, accentuated by the fact that Gary is indeed black, and we all know they're all pretty much the same. However, the nuances continue, as Gary was involved in the civil rights movement and even marched with Martin Luther King in the sixties, showing how conservative equality of opportunity is the true equalizer when it comes to racial disparity, not the coddling homogenization of liberals.

As the attack on the city worsens, suddenly, the monuments to American history (and the supremacy of the Constitution) come alive, as the statue of Abraham Lincoln (R) at the Lincoln memorial rises from his seat to smash the commie liberal usurpers. In another deft analogy, Spencer shows dinosaurs from the Natural History museum fighting right alongside Native American primitives, an obvious challenge to the scientific elitist theory of evolution and support of creative design. Finally, founding father himself George Washington appears to lead the army to defend the conservative values upon which America was founded and became the greatest nation in the history of the world.

Meanwhile, Congressman Gary asks the Beast to restart the television cameras, which had been shut off to prevent Gary from disseminating his conservative message, symbolizing the repressive power of the liberal mainstream media against which those with opposing viewpoints must constantly struggle against in order to be heard above the condescending voices of maniacs like Jon Stewart and Katey Couric. The Beast (symbolizing the fair and balanced Fox News) is able to restart the cameras, but not before discovering that Gary is a powerful mutant, showcasing the diversity of the glorious Republican party.

Finally, even liberal outlets like the BBC and terrorist mouthpieces like Al Jazeera are forced to hear the message of Gary as he recites the famous salute to American Exceptonalism from noted Republican Abraham Lincoln: The Gettysburg Address. In the end, the intolerance of liberals is shown to still be a menace, as the very idea of dissenting political thought is so offensive to the minds of liberals that they destroy the building, killing Gary in an attempt to silence him. Of, the final analogy we are left with is of Jesus Christ (R) himself, the greatest conservative, who gave his live to become the savior of both our immortal souls and the immortal soul of the United States of America. Amen.

Eli Katz wrote:I don't like fantasy because, usually, there are no rules to the magic. One guy is suddenly more powerful than others not because it makes any sense, but rather because the plot calls for it.

Also, I also don't like it because I just don't like it. It's a visceral thing. You're not going to convince me to give a genre a second chance that I have hated since childhood.

For the record, I don't like love stories either. That's another genre I'm not interested in.

Isn't the point of magic that it is beyond rules? If it had rules it would be science, or like something from a video game or a trading card game. I've always seen it like that.

I would still recommend you watch Game Of Thrones, there is very little magic, and at the point the TV show is at, none at all.

And this isn't really about fantasy, you seem to have suddenly switched to dismissing anything that is unrealistic, you read and enjoyed some superhero comics before, why change now?